Retro gaming and collecting can be a lucrative business, or a serious hobby, but we also know that there are fake ones out there in the wild. As reported by Time Extension and Retro Dodo, Epilogue has released a smartphone application called Retrace, and it works with the GB Operator letting you check whether a cartridge is legit.
And what is a GB Operator, you may ask? It is an adapter capable of accepting Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges. And then it runs those cartridges on your computer under emulation.
The new Retrace smartphone app makes thing easier than before, especially if you are out and about shopping for Game Boy games and want to do a test before handing over your money. Time Extension states that "there's a serious business in producing fake carts on the cheap, and this could be the ideal way of protecting yourself against that".
Using the Retrace app with GB Operator seems pretty easy, since you need to just "grab your GB Operator, make sure it's running the latest firmware and download the Retrace application for your phone. Plug the GB Operator into your phone with a USB-C cable, insert a cartridge, and it will not only tell you if it's authentic, but will also give you the typical price for that game".